End of an era: Largest torrent search engine Torrentz shuts down

LONDON: Weeks after search engine Kickass Torrents was shut down following the arrest of alleged founder Artem Vaulin in Poland, another major player Torrentz.eu shut its portals on Friday, a media report said.

Torrentz.eu announced "farewell" to its millions of users after The Pirate Bay decided to cease its operation.

Founded in 2003, Torrentz had millions of visitors per day the site grew out to become one of the most visited torrent sites.

After more than 13 years of service, the popular site announced its farewell just a few hours ago, that too without any warning, Next Web reported.

While the homepage is still active, Torrentz has completely disabled its search functionality and has similarly removed all torrent links.

"Torrentz was a free, fast and powerful meta-search engine combining results from dozens of search engines," a text read while searching for content.

The site's user are no longer able to login either. Instead, they see the following message: "Torrentz will always love you. Farewell."

Two weeks ago, Artem Vaulin, a 30-year-old Ukrainian owner of Kickass Torrents, was detained in Poland after being charged with a four-count US criminal indictment which was followed by shutdown of the search engine.

Vaulin was charged with money laundering and violations of several copyright laws.